The development of modern social work in Lithuania has taken somewhat more than twenty years. The period unfolds intensive processes in the development of a new profession. Social workers have been extremely keen to learn through the international context. At the same time, there has been a faster growth in the need for professional social work. The expanding variety of social problems is considered a major challenge for all societies and especially for those that lack the experience that is needed for managing social problems.
The restitution of the Lithuanian independence inspired a considerable amount of changes in economic, political and social spheres. Instead of decreasing, social problems in the country increased after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They also developed quickly into complicated ones, ranging from the appearance of social layers, social polarisation and poverty to human trafficking, child prostitution, parents’ emigration and children left behind.
At first, the social support of the post-Soviet Lithuania was unable to face the changing situation. Several problems were treated as personal instead of being results of the prevailing circumstances.
“When Lithuanian social work started to concentrate on causes rather than just consequences, it started to take the shape of the profession”, says M.Pol.Sci. Sonata Maciulskyte in her doctoral dissertation.
Maciulskyte’s dissertation unfolds the process of social work becoming a profession in Lithuania under complicated conditions in a transforming society. In the research work, Maciulskyte creates a theoretical model of the professionalization process, based on the development of social work in Lithuania.
In the professionalization model, social work practice, studies and science are central. In Lithuania, these three fields of social work have developed simultaneously, leading to their tight interdependence. However, each of them has developed at its own pace; this has created contradictions.
The development of social work practice, studies and science is affected by the system of social care, operating as the part of the welfare state. However, the lack of stability in the Lithuanian welfare state – predetermined by the lack of experience and the consequences of the post-communist transformation – has affected the construction of social work as a profession.
As social work has evolved, the meaning of education has become increasingly important. Education and training sectors have begun to play a more active and influential role in the creative process of setting professional standards and qualifications. Professionalization processes have taken place with support from educational institutions and professional associations.
Although the model is illustrated through the institutional child care system, it can be applied in other fields of social work as well. This model can also be adapted to theorizing the professionalization experience of other countries and can also be beneficial to international comparative analyses.
About the public examination of the dissertation:
Sonata Maciulskyte’s dissertation
The Code of Society Transformation in Social Work: Modelling the Construction of Lithuanian Social Work Professionalization will be examined in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Lapland on 28 March 2014 at 12 noon. The public opponent will be Professor Albinas Bagdonas from the Laboratory of Special Psychology in the Department of general Psychology at Vilnius University, and the custos will be Professor Emeritus Kyösti Urponen from the University of Lapland. The public examination will take place in Auditorium 6 (ULapland main building, Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi). Welcome!
Information on the doctoral candidate:
Sonata Maciulskyte (born in 1977 in Plunge, Lithuania) completed her secondary school at the Akademiko Adolfo Jucio Secondary School in 1995, obtained her Bachelor of Political Sciences degree in 1999 and Master of Political Sciences degree in 2001 at Klaipeda University. She has worked as university lecturer at Klaipeda University since 2001 and since 2014 as a project coordinator at the Lithuanian Sea Museum.
Further information:
Sonata Maciulskyte, s.maciulskyte (at) gmail.com, tel. +370 684 47019
Press copies of the doctoral dissertation are available in the Lapland University Press, tel. +358 40 821 4242, publications (at) ulapland.fi.
Publication data:
Sonata Maciulskyte:
The Code of Society Transformation in Social Work: Modelling the Construction of Lithuanian Social Work Professionalization. Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis 273. Lapland University Press: Rovaniemi 2014. ISBN 978-952-484-713-1. ISSN 0788-7604.
Sale:
Academic and Art Bookshop Tila (University of Lapland Library, Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi), tel. +358 40 821 4242, publications (at) ulapland.fi, online orders at
www.ulapland.fi/lup
ULapland / Communications / TN